I Won’t Say Aloud That ‘I’m Black & I’m Proud’
I enjoy being in
the skin that I am in. I love the shade
of my skin color. I love being Shawn in
every sense of what it means to be me.
If you ask me if I enjoy being black my answer would be not completely. As I continue to mature, evolve, and grow as
a human being, being the stereotypical black person [at least in today’s terms]
does not represent the person that I am. During THE STATE of POOR MINDEDNESS IN
AMERICA discussion seminar I hold at educational institutions and corporate
companies, I ask the audience to take a temporary step out of their race and
objectively report to me the stereotypes of their particular race. We eat
a bunch of spaghetti and meatballs and talk with our hands, the Italians
say. “We’re smart and short…we work for
cheap too,” an Asian female humorously said about her group of people. A black person will usually chime in, We’re criminals and we don’t read!, just
like someone of Hispanic descent usually comments that people think most
Hispanics are expert landscapers and roofers.
Every race has stereotypes that may be considered good and bad – even
funny, and I believe that there is a certain level of truth to many of the
stereotypes that exist in every culture.
The unfortunate thing that I have found in my work is that black folks
are the leading race with bad stereotypes that outweigh the good and I am
uncomfortable with that.
February is a
time when we learn a lot about the greatest black people ever (lol – which does
not make any sense because every generation has its greats in all races and
cultures), things that they did, what they overcame, and what they
invented. I am aware that black people
are still doing great things today, inventing incredible things, and still
overcoming, but I postulate that it may not be commensurate to the notion of
greatness we are led to believe existed during the Harlem Renaissance, Black
Wall Street, The Civil Rights Movement, or other prominent eras post chattel
slavery. It is hard for me to say
exactly how it was during these actual times because I do not recall being
alive during these time-periods but research and history promote the idea that
being black stood for more than being a criminal, a hood-dude, ratchet, gangsta’, a “real nigga”, etc. It appears that being black did not isolate
young people to only dream of being athletes, entertainers, and TV
personalities with sex appeal. Like I
said previously, if this is what it means to be black then I have to say that I
am not an adequate representation of that word or maybe that word does not describe
the type of person who Shawn is.
I thank God for
the family that I come from because in many ways they challenge the
stereotypical ideas of blackness in today’s world. I can actually look back quite a few
generations in my lineage and see pictures of whole families. I don’t see a bunch of “niggas” in my family
– but trust me there are some (lol). My
father and uncles have all had long careers in different fields and/or have
owned respected businesses. When I look
at my lineage, I do not see women dressing excessively provocative in pictures
and I did not grow up hearing my sisters, aunts, and cousin’s use terrible
vernacular – even when they used some slang.
The women in my family are just as successful as the men – and quite a
few of them are alumni of collegiate institutes such as YALE. The unfortunate thing is that at this time I
cannot go as far back in my lineage as some of my other racial counterparts
(which speaks to different dynamics such as slavery that has impacted black
people) but the fact that I can look back and see so much quality success in
the past 3-4 generations gives me a different PerspectVe of what being black in
America should be in comparison to what it is – stereotypically speaking. During a sermon, Pastor T.D. Jakes spoke of
how black people are one of the only groups of people to attain a middle class
socioeconomic status but still hang around lower socioeconomic classes. He went on to say that his own kids asked him
to move back to the hood at one point.
How ignorant is that? Why should
one be embarrassed about achieving higher levels of success? What is so great about living in the hood and
being broke (not that everyone who lives in the hood is poor and broke)? Bro Polight once talked about how easy it is to not own or have anything and
to brag about not having shit. A
friend of mine once said to me the hood
use to be a stepping stone but now it’s a way of life. That is what I call ignorance and poor
mindedness.
Though I love
the shade of my skin color and I do not desire to be any other race, until
black folks increase our educational/economic prowess, quality of character,
and cultural reputation I cannot agree with James Brown and say that I’m Black
& I’m Proud.
#ExpandYourPerspectVe
